Preview: Menomena/Empty Bottle

Bands don’t come much cleverer than Portland indie rock trio Menomena (whose name, presumably, is a derivation of the nostalgic “Muppet Show” anthem “Mah Na Mah Na”). The group’s first album, “I Am The Fun Blame Monster!”, is more than a bizarre, attention-grabbing title, it’s also an anagram for “the first Menomena album.” By the band’s third record, Menomena had already reached the mind-boggling album art plateau, as “Friend of Foe” featured eight different variations of a Dante-esque hellscape. But these are merely intelligent ornaments to the band’s actual music, a genre-blending mishmash that allows each member to take turns on every instrument. A mixture of pop and post-rock, Menomena’s use of immediately consumable lyrics (“O, to be a machine. O, to be wanted, to be useful”) and detail-oriented arrangements (a ominously persistent tenor sax part will remind a few of Radiohead’s “National Anthem”) consistently points to a band that puts an abundance of time and consideration into its work. Most moving music comes from the gut, the heart or the balls—but Menomena comes straight from the cerebral cortex. (Andy Seifert)